About The Astronauts

We are a small independent game developer located in Warsaw, Poland. Before The Astronauts, some of us worked on games like Painkiller and Bulletstorm.

Our latest project is Witchfire, a dark fantasy first person shooter set in an alternative world in which witches are real and very dangerous – but so are you, witchhunter.

Our first game was a weird fiction mystery titled The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The game has won many awards, including BAFTA, and we sold over one million copies. It’s available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Click here for more details.

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The Moods of Bernard Kowalczuk

We always say that we are a certain amount of Astronauts – and a half. Bernard, our concept artist, is that half. What does it mean? You will find the answer at the end of the post. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at a few samples of Bernard’s work.

(Click on any image on see a higher resolution version)

I always loved to paint, but when I’ve stumbled upon the portfolio of Colin Fix it became clear to me that painting with a computer can give better results than any other technique. And that being a concept artist must be the coolest job in the world.

A little less than two years ago my brothers bought me a graphics tablet and since then creating digital art with it became my passion.

The tablet I use is Wacom Bamboo, and the software is, of course, Photoshop – it has no competition, really. Sometimes I use SketchUp for more technical things. I’m also trying to learn ZBrush, but I never spend enough time with it to achieve anything worth mentioning.

The best thing about making art is that I can create something that’s completely mine. I can show others what’s in my head.

Apart from that, instead of focusing on one cool idea, I try for my paintings to tell a story. And I love that, because I’ve always thought – though never admitted it, as I am lousy with words – that it would be sweet to write fairy tales for a living.

Thanks, Bernard.

And here’s the kicker. We call Bernard our “half-Astronaut” simply because he cannot work with us full time as he’s 18 years old and still in high school.

What you saw here is just the beginning of the road for Bernard. If this is what he can do now, imagine him in a few years time. We find that thought inspiring. You make us want to be better at stuff, Bernard. Welcome onboard!

If you enjoyed these samples of Bernard’s art, there are more at his blog and his deviantART page. You can also find there higher resolution versions of the images we used in this blog post.